Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Charles Mingus Jr. was born on April 22, 1922 in Nogales, Arizona of Chinese, English, African and Swedish heritage. His mother allowed only church-related music in their home, but Mingus developed an early love for jazz, especially the music of Duke Ellington. He first studied trombone, later adding cello, which prepared him for the double bass in high school. He studied five years with H. Rheinshagen, principal bassist of the New York Philharmonic and compositional techniques with Lloyd Reese.
Beginning in his teen years, Mingus was writing quite advanced pieces incorporating elements of classical music. A number of them were recorded in 1960 with conductor Gunther Schuller and released as “Pre-Bird”, referring to Charlie “Bird” Parker. Mingus was one of many musicians whose perspectives on music were altered by Parker into “pre- and post-Bird” eras.
Gaining a reputation as a bass prodigy, his first major professional job was playing with former Ellington clarinetist Barney Bigard. This followed by a tour with Louis Armstrong in 1943 that led to his recording in a band led by Russell Jacquet that included Teddy Edwards and Chico Hamilton. He went onto record with Howard McGhee and into the late ‘40s played with Lionel Hampton’s band performing several of his pieces.
A popular Mingus trio had Red Norvo and Tal Farlow in tow in the early 50s with considerable acclaim but his mixed heritage caused problems with club owners and he left the group. Charles was briefly a member of Ellington’s band until his temper got him fired. He went on to record and play with Max Roach, Bud Powell, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Pepper Adams, Jaki Byard, Horace Parlan, Booker Ervin, John Handy, Charles McPherson, Eric Dolphy and Johnny Coles among others through the Sixties and into the next decade. By the mid-1970s, Mingus was suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease that eventually stopped his playing, leaving him to continue composing and supervising recordings prior to his death on January 5, 1979 at age 56 in Cuernavaca, Mexico.
Composer, bandleader, bassist and civil rights activist Charles Mingus left a legacy of an autobiography, Mingus Big Band, Mingus Dynasty, Mingus Orchestra, the Charles Mingus High School Competition, the catalogue of Mingus compositions in the Music Division of the New York Public Library and the collected papers of Charles Mingus housed at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Junko Onishi was born April 16, 1967 in Kyoto, Japan and studied piano at Berklee College of Music. She then moved to New York City where she played with Joe Henderson, Betty Carter, Kenny Garrett and the Mingus Dynasty but has also worked with Jackie McLean, Holly Cole, Billy Higgins and many others.
Primarily playing in the post-bop genre, Junko cites her influences as Duke Ellington, Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman but one can hear McCoy Tyner, Kenny Kirkland and Mulgrew Miller’s influences in her playing. As a leader she has recorded nine albums on Blue Note Records label Somethin’ Else.
Choosing to study and practice she stopped performing in the late Nineties and when her mentor, Jaki Byard passed away she stopped playing completely for two years. Redeveloping her technique Onishi returned to playing and started a gym regimen to help her cope with the physical rigors of playing.
She appears in the 1997 documentary “Blue Note: A Story Of Modern Jazz playing the song “Trinity” and “Quick” from her album Play, Piano, Play: Junko Onishi Trio in Europe. In 2009 she released her Blue Note album “Musical Moments” followed by her Verve large band project “Baroque”. She continues to perform, record and tour worldwide.
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Daily Dose OF Jazz…
Red Norvo was born Kenneth Norville on March 31, 1908 in Beardstown, Illinois. It is said that he sold his pet pony to help pay for his first marimba. He began his career in 1925 in Chicago playing with a band called “The Collegians”, in 1925. He played with many other bands, including an all-marimba band on the vaudeville circuit along with the bands of Paul Whiteman, Benny Goodman, Charlie Barnet and Woody Herman.
By 1933 he had recorded two sessions for Brunswick under his own name including two of the earliest, most modern pieces of chamber jazz: Bix Beiderbecke’s “In A Mist” and his own “Dance of the Octopus”. For these he put aside the xylophone for the marimba yet outraged the label’s head that tore up his contract and threw him out, though the album remained in print throughout the 30s.
From 1934-35 Red recorded 8 modern swing sides for Columbia followed by 15 sides of Decca and their short-lived Champion label series in 1936. From there he formed a Swing Orchestra and recorded for ARC, Vocalion and Columbia featuring brilliant arrangements by Eddie Sauter and often vocals by Mildred Bailey.
In 1938, Red Norvo and His Orchestra reached number one with their recordings of “Please Be Kind” and “Says My Heart”. He went on to record with Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie in 1945, hit the West Coast in ’47, helped Charles Mingus rise to prominence in his trio, recorded for Savoy, recorded with Sinatra in Australia and released by Blue Note, appeared on the Dinah Shore Chevy Show and appeared in the movie Screaming Mimi as himself.
Red Norvo, helped to establish the xylophone, marimba and vibraphone as a viable jazz instrument continued to record and tour throughout his career until a stroke in the mid-1980s forced him into retirement. He died at a convalescent home on April 6, 1999 in Santa Monica, California at the age of 91.
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Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Orrin Evans was born on March 28, 1976 in Trenton, New Jersey but was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Nurtured in a household filled with music due to his classical singer mother who surrounded him with the melodies of Puccini to the pulsating rhythms of Basie and Ellington.
Evans graduated from high school in the early 90s and studied at Rutgers University before going on to study piano privately with Kenny Barron and be employed as a sideman by Bobby Watson, Ralph Peterson, Duane Eubanks, Lenora Zenzalai-Helms and others.
Evans recorded his first session as a leader, The Orrin Evans Trio, for his own Black Entertainment label in 1994. After that, he signed with Criss Cross and between 1997-99 he recorded Justin Time, Captain Black and Grown Folks Bizness. Into the new millennium Orrin recorded prolifically releasing “Listen to the Band”, “Blessed Ones” and “Meant to Shine”, continuing his yearly release schedule up to his latest “Flip The Script”.
Influenced greatly by McCoy Tyner, Horace Silver, Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk among others, he remains in the hard bop genre but occasionally detours into soul-jazz and R&B when backing vocalists Denise King and Dawn Warren. In 2010 he was awarded a Pew Fellowship in the Arts. He continues to perform, record and tour.
Daily Dose Of Jazz…
Cecil Percival Taylor was born March 25, 1929 in New York City and began playing piano and classical training at age six. He studied at the New York College of Music and New England Conservatory. After first steps in R&B and swing-styled small groups in the early 1950s, he formed his own band with soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy in 1956, in which he release his first recording Jazz Advance.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Taylor’s music grew more complex and moved away from existing jazz styles. Gigs were often hard to come by, and club owners found Taylor’s approach to performance (long pieces) unhelpful in conducting business. Forming his group The Unit in 1961 with Jimmy Lyons, Sunny Murray and later Andrew Cyrille produced landmark recordings, like “Unit Structures” in 1966, they continued to record although sporadically and many of his recording sessions remained unreleased for sometimes decades.
By the 70s he was performing solo concerts and Taylor’s work began to be released for the next two decades, garnering critical if not popular acclaim. He began lecturing at universities, was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship, performed a White House lawn concert for President Jimmy Carter, was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, returned to the trio setting, collaborated with ballet companies and as an accomplished poet often incorporates his poems into his musical performances.
He is the co-founder of the Jazz Composers Guild to enhance the working possibilities of avant-garde musicians. Acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz, his music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. His piano technique has been likened to percussion, described as “eighty-eight tuned drums” referring to the number of keys on a standard piano. He continues to perform, compose and record.
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